The Pathos of Winchester
by celinenaville
Summary: Castiel can see his friends' pain. They carry a lot of it, but they carry it so differently, these brothers. Set in Season 5. ONE SHOT. Not Destiel.


_For my Cas Girls, and dear friends Alex and Didi. Alex, namer of this fanfic, enjoy.  
_

 **The Pathos of Winchester  
**

Dean's pain was immense, bright and focused. It took over his entire being at times and it drew Cas' eye to it like a lighthouse beacon that swept across stormy seas.

But Sam's pain was quiet and complex- like a garland of lights wrapped around a Christmas tree. Woven around and around and tangled in on itself in tiny bright little flares.

So many tiny little scars. The Death of a Thousand Cuts. In order to see the roots of Sam's pain, one had to follow the little lights and slowly unwind the tangle, only to find it had no source.

There was no one traumatic event, no cataclysmic flaw in his emotional makeup that all his angst stemmed from. No. It was little aches. Little wounds.

However, Dean's fatal weakness Castiel had uncovered when he first took the time to really speak with the man he'd saved.

The Angel had perceived it with a tilt of his head, a furrow of his brow and the puzzled pronouncement of "you don't feel you deserve to be saved."

It had genuinely surprised Castiel that this this man who had so much good in him, so much merit, was a hero really, didn't perceive his own worth.

It was his wound.

The raw and open wound that he bled from. It was insidious, and it fed off its own pain and reopened itself time and again.

Most of Dean's problems formed themselves there, bathed in the blood of that great gaping gash and grew stronger from it.

It was something that couldn't be patched. - A cut that could not be mended with needle and so much fishing line.

It was something one could shove gauze into with a kind word or sympathetic hug, but still it kept bleeding. Because Dean could not see his own worth.

He _never_ would, Castiel knew, because _that_ was the tragedy of Dean Winchester.

His self-hatred ran against all logic.

He was Bobby Singer's favorite. Castiel could tell by the way the old hunter looked at him- with gruff amusement, pained love. Looks he never bestowed upon Sam in quite the same way.

Dean had been his father's favorite...as much as a parent can have a favorite.

He was even the favorite of Castiel. The bond they now shared had been forged when he lifted Dean from Hell and first touched that shining, tattered Soul. It was something that would link them for the duration of Castiel's existence, a feeling he couldn't shake.

Dean was a favorite among women. Among other Hunters.

Still Dean couldn't see it. His pain remained bright and intense. -The certainty of his worthlessness painted fresh each day.

Dean's ego, always on the lookout for something to prove what his heart already knew with a fatal certainty- He was not worthy of Love.

He didn't understand that his own father loved him so deeply he sold his soul to the one thing he hated most in this world so that his son would live.

That John Winchester couldn't stand the thought of Dean dying more than he couldn't stand the thought of forfeiting the battle he'd been fighting for 22 years.

He had forfeited that battle when it was at its fever pitch.

He had looked Azazel in the eye, tossed in his chips and said: _I fold._ He had bowed to the will of the thing that had slaughtered his wife and sent his life and his son's lives spiraling into a waking nightmare.

John Winchester had been a proud man. But if the life of his eldest hung in the balance with that pride, there was no contest. He'd conceded to his enemy and he'd gone to Hell.

John Winchester's Hell had not been pleasant. And there had been no Angel to save him. He crawled out himself...but that was another story. One Castiel hadn't witnessed in the front row.

John loved his eldest son that deeply and Dean didn't know it. He'd probably have done the same thing for Sam. Probably.

 _Sam._ Had Sam Winchester been anyone's favorite in comparison to his brother, whose force of charm and personality dominated every interaction?

Castiel shifted through time and space and impressions-and what he knew from his handshake with The Boy with the Demon Blood...and thought _NO._

He felt badly for a moment. The occasional teacher favored Sam, of course. The quiet one- the one who didn't cause trouble- but what did they know of the Winchesters? They knew them for two months here or there and then the boys disappeared and were forgotten in the sea of endless faces and names within the educational system.

No one who remained close to the Winchesters for any true duration of time preferred Sam Winchester.

Lucifer preferred Sam. The demon who called herself Ruby preferred Sam.

This did not make Cas feel any better.

Castiel didn't often have the leisure or even the inclination to ponder such things. He was a soldier after all-a warrior.

He was to follow orders, to fight Heaven's battles.

He was not built for these human emotions. For pain and laughter and despondency and wonderment.

Yet they fascinated him.

Humanity fascinated him.

Dean and Sam Winchester fascinated him. And the closer he stood to them, the more he was drawn in by their pain...by them tirelessly slogging through and waging battles through that pain. Noble in their frailty, they awed him with their tenacity. That is if Castiel, Soldier of Heaven, Angel of the Lord, could truly understand awe.

What were the Winchesters offering him?

Free will?

A chance at choice- or a chance for Castiel to have his own pain-be it a flaming bonfire or a hundred little candles.

There was pain in choice. He was certain of it. Castiel hoped there would be peace down this road.

But somehow he knew that wasn't going to happen for Sam or Dean. Perhaps the rest of the world would have a shot at it. But not the Winchesters. Their test was harder and the penalty harsher. Castiel blinked, drawing his thoughts away from the heartache that blazed like a wildfire in Dean. Away from the twisting puzzle of Sam's battered psyche.

He wondered what his own pain would look like. He knew eventually it awaited him.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a thought struck him. Dawned on him, like the deep tolling of a Church bell announcing its presence.

Sam Winchester _was_ favored.

He was Dean's favorite.

It was only one person. Only one soul who loved him above all other things.

Unlike his brother, Sam carried a quiet certainty that he was worth something. There was no gaping hole of self flagellation and hatred that he fell into. No gaping wound that shone like a beacon and blinded Castiel with its intensity.

Instead there were the little flares like Christmas lights.

Sam was Dean's favorite. -Had _always_ been Dean's favorite, and would _always_ be his favorite.

It was only _one_ person.

But, perhaps, that had been enough.

Perhaps Sam Winchester was certain of his own worth because really, in the end, _Dean_ was the only one who mattered.

The End.


End file.
